0
December 9, 2009, Vol 302, No. 22 >

Full Content is available to subscribers

Subscribe/Learn More
Poetry and Medicine | December 9, 2009

Change of Heart

Elizabeth D. McKinley, MD
JAMA. 2009;302(22):2408. doi:10.1001/jama.2009.1700.
Text Size: A A A
Published online
Article

Extract

He is crying.
Gown falls open over stapled-shut chest,
where a patch of silver hair lies mowed
and planted with thick metal wickets.
He reads to me from his hospital bed:
wild horses run hard over red rock.
His voice begins to shake;
at first I think he's laughing.
He's had his heart laid open,
bone saw splitting its calcified cage.
This heart so used to the close embrace
of pericardium, like praying hands
whose fibrous fingers hold the heart secure.
Support falls away as scalpel
enters this human cathedral.
No audible hallelujah lifts as steel
slides into stilled chambers.
Does some holy fragment of us slip out
of such a wound?
A wisp of soul?
A drop of grace?
He tells me his heart falls free at night
bumping into his breastbone when he rolls.
He dreams his heart falls out of his chest onto the floor.
Like his heart, he is unmoored.
Emotions run hard over him, untamed.
He doesn't like any of this at all,
and still he is changed.
He dreams in colors now—
vibrant greens, blood reds, blues—
seeing things he's never seen before.
He still cries when I read to him,
as words become poetry on every page.
Is this what it means to have an open heart?

Topics

Sign In to Access Full Content

Don't have Access?

Register and get free email Table of Contents alerts, saved searches, PowerPoint downloads, CME quizzes, and more

Subscribe for full-text access to content from 1998 forward and a host of useful features

Activate your current subscription (AMA members and current subscribers)

Purchase Online Access to this article for 24 hours

First Page Preview

View Large
First page PDF preview

Figures

Tables

Interactive Graphics

Video

Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature

Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal

References

Letters

Submit a Letter
CME
Accreditation Information
The American Medical Association is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. The AMA designates this journal-based CME activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM per course. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. Physicians who complete the CME course and score at least 80% correct on the quiz are eligible for AMA PRA Category 1 CreditTM.
Note: You must get at least of the answers correct to pass this quiz.
Clear Answers | Save For Later
You have not filled in all the answers to complete this quiz
The following questions were not answered:
Sorry, you have unsuccessfully completed this CME quiz with a score of
The following questions were not answered correctly:
Commitment to Change (optional):
Indicate what change(s) you will implement in your practice, if any, based on this CME course.
Your quiz results:
The filled radio buttons indicate your responses. The preferred responses are highlighted
For CME Course: A Proposed Model for Initial Assessment and Management of Acute Heart Failure Syndromes
Indicate what changes(s) you will implement in your practice, if any, based on this CME course.
NOTE:
Citing articles are presented as examples only. In non-demo SCM6 implementation, integration with CrossRef’s “Cited By” API will populate this tab (http://www.crossref.org/citedby.html).
Compression-Only CPR: Pushing the Science Forward
Cone
AAM 2010;304:1493-1495.
All you need to read in the other general journals
BMJ 2010;341:c5893-c1494.
Submit a Response

Some tools below are only available to our subscribers or users with an online account.

Sign In to Access Full Content

Related Content

Customize your page view by dragging & repositioning the boxes below.

Related Topics
Jobs

More Listings at
JAMACareerCenter.com >

© 2013 American Medical Association. All Rights Reserved.
Powered bySilverchair Information Systems